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New projects to help ease water shortage

SHARJAH — The availability of water in Sharjah would improve considerably when the Sharjah Electricity and Water Authority (Sewa) completes a dam with a storage capacity of 400 million gallons and a water desalination plant in Al Hamriya that can generate 140 million gallons of water per day.

Sewa announced these two projects recently.

Speaking to Khaleej Times, Mayada Al Bardan, Director of Water Desalination Plants in Sharjah, said the total cost of the dam project and the time required for completion would be announced soon.

Sewa is also making necessary efforts to increase water supply by establishing a desalination plant in Al Hamriya starting with 20 million gallons initially and increasing the capacity gradually every year to reach 140 million gallons, she said.

The number of complaints about water scarcity was high in 2005 and 2006 but started to decline in 2007.

In the current year so far, the complaints received had been only about minor technical problems in residential buildings due to snags in the water pump or storage areas.

Mayada said Sewa had made necessary efforts to solve the shortage of water that had hit almost all parts of the emirate before 2007.

One of the steps was increasing the production capacity at the Allia water plant.

By the end of this month, its capacity is expected to increase by 5 million gallons touching a daily output of 60 million gallons.

Sewa completed Halwan Dam which has a capacity of 15 million gallons at an estimated cost of Dh40 million and started pumping from it in May 2007.

A dam with increased capacity to store 7.5 million gallons and a desalination unit with a capacity to produce 8 million gallons have been added to the Allia main water desalination plant.

Mayada pointed out that 95 per cent of the water supplied is desalinated and the rest taken from the wells in the emirate.

afkar@khaleejtimes.com

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